Wind Farms Now Come With the Threat of Jail
Bloomberg Business
Jessica Shankleman
3 March 2016

Poland’s proposed rules may cost industry $38 million a year

Legislation would apply to existing renewable plants

One of Europe’s most promising markets for renewable energy is being threatened by legislation that would impose new fees and potential jail terms for operators of wind farms, an industry lobby group said.

Poland’s governing Law and Justice Party is proposing laws that would require new turbines to be situated away from homes, schools and natural reserves at a distance of more than 10-times their height. That would be about 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles), according to data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The law also would subject existing wind farms to audits every two years.

The law would raise annual wind farm costs by as much as 150 million zloty ($37.6 million) even if no more turbines were built, according to the draft legislation. While the government is attempting to clamp down on rising electricity bills and empower communities concerned about the installations, the wind industry says the rules would choke off development and eliminate a clean source of electricity.

Poland’s plans “will tie projects up in red tape and make life difficult for developers by imposing arbitrary rules that serve no other purpose than to prevent wind turbine deployment,” said Oliver Joy, a spokesman for the European Wind Energy Association. “This draft law is a clear statement of intent and should not be allowed to stand.”

The government says it’s worried a surge in new installations is creating a conflict between communities and investors. It’s also seeking to curb subsidies for renewables and support its ailing coal industry, which has been undercut by falling commodity prices. While the country was among more than 195 nations that backed the Paris deal on climate change in December, it has sought a special status for coal and forecasts the fossil fuel will form a key component of its energy security for decades.

Piotr Naimski, the Polish government official in charge of supervising gas and power grids, said Thursday the country needs to adopt a strategy of letting renewables compete with coal-fired plants without subsidies. He wants to change the current merit system that gives wind power priority over coal generation, according to an interview with Biznesalert.pl.

Poland’s energy ministry declined to comment on the draft law.

Poland, Europe’s top coal producer, notched up the continent’s second-highest number of wind-power installations last year. Developers rushed to install 1.26 gigawatts of new capacity ahead of expected changes to government subsidies, that will require developers to bid in auctions for support. The country now has 5.1 gigawatts of installed wind capacity, equivalent to about 9 percent of the installed base in neighboring Germany.

“Poland has excellent wind resources and has the potential to be a European power house in wind energy,” The threat to imprison turbine operators for violating potential rules is “deeply concerning and misguided,” Joy said.

Concerning for the wind lobby group are rules embedded in the legislation that would require wind farm owners to pay fees for operating plants and sign up for a new permit every two years. Those who fail to comply might face prison sentences, and the rules would be applied retroactively to existing plants, said Joy.

Instead of imposing tough restrictions, the government may find ways to boost the benefits that communities enjoy from wind power, including opportunities to co-invest, said David Hostert, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

“There are also a host of technical solutions available today to limit the impact of wind turbines, such as noise-reduction technology or automatically stopping the turbine at certain times of day to avoid flickering shadows on nearby properties,” he said.

The Bloomberg line about wind power being “clean energy” a giveaway as to where its mercenary financial interests are aligned – sure it’s ‘clean’, if you ignore the fact that behind every MW of wind power capacity is a MW of real capacity at a coal or gas fired power plant, burning fuel around the clock to ensure the grid doesn’t collapse every time the wind drops:

Then there’s the 220 tonnes of coal used to make the steel in a single turbine; the 400-500m3 of steel reinforced concrete in each base; and a raft of other metals and toxic – and highly flammable – plastics, coolants and lubricants:

Oh, and almost forgot, then there’s the rare earths that are used in the magnets for their generators – millions of tonnes of neodymium and dysprosium – which have left China with toxic lakes, like poisonous inland seas surrounding the plants that produce them.

‘Clean’ as a whistle …

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Also in the fantasy PR realm is the claim about “new technology” making these things as quiet as a mouse. Here’s some of that technology in concert:

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And the notion that noise ‘remediation’ can work on homes – to protect the ability of neighbours to sleep in and otherwise enjoy their own homes – has been scotched long ago.

Clive and Trina Gare are cattle graziers with their home property situated between Hallett and Jamestown.

Since October 2010, the Gares have played host to 19, 2.1MW Suzlon s88 turbines, which sit on a range of hills to the West of their stately homestead. Under their contract with AGL they receive around $200,000 a year; and have pocketed over $1 million since the deal began.

On 10 June 2015, the Gares gave evidence to the Senate Inquiry into the great wind power fraud during its Adelaide hearing: [Hansard from the hearing is available here as HTML and here as a PDF (the Gare’s evidence commencing at p55)].

As an aside, that evidence completely contradicts the wind industry lie that turbine hosts never, ever complain; a piece of propaganda cooked up by its media manipulators – including a former tobacco advertising guru – who run the story that it’s only “jealous” wind farm neighbours who complain about wind turbine noise, “jealous” because they’re not getting paid.

The Gares pocket $200,000 a year for the ‘pleasure’ of hosting 19 of these things; and, yet, make it very clear that it was the worst decision of their lives.

In their evidence they describe the noise from turbines as “unbearable”; requiring earplugs and the noise from the radio to help them get to sleep at night; and the situation when the turbines first started operating in October 2010 as “Crap, to put it honestly” – evidence which is entirely consistent with the types of complaints made routinely by wind farm neighbours who don’t get paid, in Australia and around the world; and as detailed in the examples below.

The Gare’s evidence is also entirely consistent with the experience of David and Alida Mortimer, also paid to host turbines for Infigen at Lake Bonney, near Millicent in SA’s South-East (see our post here).

Despite AGL spending tens of thousands on noise “mitigation” measures – double glazing, sound deadening insulation and the like, the noise from turbines continues to ruin their ability to sleep in their own home, as Trina Gare put it:

No, they were waking me up on the weekend. You wake up to the thumping. This is with all the soundproofing in the house. As I said, I sleep with the radio on every night. If they are really cranked up I have to turn the volume up, so I will probably just go slowly deaf.

In her evidence Trina Gare stated, in the same terms as her husband Clive, that:

In my opinion, towers should not be any closer than five kilometres to a dwelling. If we had to buy another property, it would not be within a 20-kilometre distance to a wind farm. I think that says it all.

That the Polish government is doing what governments are supposed to do – namely representing power consumers and property owners (plenty of constituents do both) – is merely a sad indictment on those, like ours, that run lock-step with an industry that would kill its first born, if there was a sniff of a subsidy in it. More power to the Poles.

Comments

For us in Poland the proposed setback of 10 x W is the first step in the long overdue regulation of wind power industry, including even basic technical supervision. The European wind lobby wishes us to „host” tens of thousands of WTs eventually, which is possible only with zero protection for rural residents.
The Bloomberg’s article spells out the European wind lobby’s main line of attack, which is to depict the proposed legislation as motivated by ideological bias against industrial wind power. The article’s title (prison for wind turbines!) is a wilful misrepresentation. The draft law does not provide any special penalties for wind farm developers. There are no special sanctions, save for normal enforcement rules that are found in any legislation.
Moreover, most of the increased costs for the industry are simply higher property tax payments to municipalities. The difference is that from now on they will be assessed against the wind turbine as a whole, and not some minor parts of it.
All of this implies nothing more than a relatively level playing field across the energy sector. Not surprisingly, the industry believes it is entitled to its holy cow status forever.
We should also point out that the Polish wind farm neighbour community has not been consulted either before or during the law drafting process. People living under the already existing wind turbines expect the government to take care of them as well.
We do feel the fury of wind lobby both in Poland and in Europe. Please keep your finger crossed for us!

To your materials cost analysis STT you could perhaps also add the very significant cost for supply and installation of many kilometres of 3 phase, high voltage cable to connect the fans to the interfacing substation(s). The substation itself is a high cost item, with switchgear and step-up transformer(s) to enable grid connection probably via EHV transmission line, another high cost piece of infrastructure.
All these “incidental” additional capital costs are made all the more economically unsustainable when you consider the pathetic utilisation factor that would need to be factored into the cost of financing for any real economy asset. Obviously, that’s where the CEFC and mandated REC subsidies come to the fore, picking up the tab for white elephants that no self respecting bank would touch with a barge pole.